


if we go down, then we go down together

by lieyuu



Series: paris [ animorphs fusion ] [1]
Category: Dream SMP (Video Blogging RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animorphs Fusion, Alternate Universe - High School, Developing Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Foreshadowing, GeorgeNotFound-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Neglect, M/M, Pre-Relationship, References to Depression, Time Travelling Karl Jacobs, very very background karlnap if you squint like reaaaalllly hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29505363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lieyuu/pseuds/lieyuu
Summary: Their first mission is a disaster."It's okay," George says after the fact, perched on Dream’s Juliet’s balcony. He shares the space with nothing but a succulent in a small blue pot, stubbornly growing. He tilts his head, sharp, the way birds do. Dream is sitting on the bed, head in his hands, and he refuses to look up. "Really, it’s fine. I mean, of all morphs to be stuck in, this one’s really cool at the very least."or; the Animorphs fusion fic that no one except me asked for.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Karl Jacobs
Series: paris [ animorphs fusion ] [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2167383
Comments: 20
Kudos: 83





	if we go down, then we go down together

**Author's Note:**

> yes i wrote an animorphs fic. you should all read animorphs, it's incredible. ideally somehow all 50 books before i post the next part of this, because while this fic only contains mild spoilers for the first seven or so books, the next one definitely spoils the entire ending. but i haven't started writing it, and we all know i'm a very slow writer, so,
> 
> title from _paris_ by the chainsmokers, series title also similarly named. 
> 
> big thank yous to [anix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fensandmarshes) for being the greatest beta ever and hyping this fic up <3 thank u for putting up with me and my animorphs brainrot

George always knew he would die young.

It’s an unfortunate side effect of, like, “childhood trauma” and “a toxic home life” and “stunted social development”, as the therapists (licensed) and counselors (not licensed) all like to say. Or whatever. All of them insist it’s a mindset he can and will outgrow, that one day everything is going to be okay, and he’ll wake up and see his happiest years stretching out before him. 

George is fifteen when he stops believing them. Ospreys only live for about ten or so years, on average - when your life is put on an invisible timer, you learn to squash any hopes you might have about your future and start worrying about fighting for everyone else’s. 

One day, everything is going to be okay. George probably won’t be there to see it, but - that’s fine. That’s alright. He’ll do his part in this stupid fucking alien war to make sure everyone else does.

Ten or so years. On average. George has never been average, even before he gained the ability to turn into animals and then proceeded to immediately get stuck as one of said animals. For better or for worse, he has always stuck out of the crowd. 

Play distraction. Play eyes-in-the-sky. He’s going to die young, but no one else is going to, not on his watch. 

-

The thing about Dream is that he is everlasting.

There are people you see for the first time and then never unsee, people who live in the shadows and shapes behind your eyelids and the corners of your peripheral vision. Dream is one such person.

George had never considered them friends - acquaintances who got along somewhat better than most other acquaintances, if anything. They had math and English together - George traded equations of logarithms and imaginary numbers for the latest _Romeo & Juliet _analysis near daily. 

That was, save smiles in the hall and occasional corner-seats at lunch, the extent of their interaction.

The extent of their sameness. If George is meant to die young, Dream is meant to live forever - immortalized in history books, immortalized in life. If there was ever a trace of godhood on Earth, the last of it is within Dream.

He is the stars - luminescent, beautiful in their undying. 

(It’s easy to forget - stars are beautiful in their dying, too.)

-

It goes as follows:

There is a construction site, a big one. It’s meant for some new mall, L’-something-or-the-other. There are five teenagers picking their way across the tarp and scaffolding, and the one in the lead, a boy named Wilbur Soot, snickers loudly when George mutters something under his breath about the French.

Wilbur is the tallest, and standing in front, but he and Dream are busy bickering about how good of an idea it is to climb over the pile of bricks coming up ahead of them rather than go around (“If you fall off and break a leg, I am not carrying you back,” Wilbur says, snidely), and they’re not the ones staring up at the night sky anyways.

So Niki is the first to notice the shooting star that’s two shades too artificial to be a shooting star, and she’s the first one whose eyes widen when it comes hurtling out of the sky and narrowly avoids crashing into said pile of bricks.

When the world goes silent, and the Andalite stumbles out with their bloody flank, George is the first to try and dart to their side. Later, he thinks it’s funny - of course it was him. It would always be him. The blood is thick and viscous, and George has to close his eyes for a moment as he gets closer. 

“What the _fuck,_ ” Wilbur says, loudly, as George skids to a stop next to the bleeding creature. “What -”

The group’s footsteps slam against the ground, beating a steady countdown clock to an unknown ending. “Monster,” Sapnap breathes.

“Alien,” Niki counters.

“Beast,” Dream says, confident like he knows it as the truth.

(Later, he tells George - “I was trying to make an off-brand Beauty and the Beast joke. I was trying to say you were Beauty, and he was Beast. I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did.” He doesn’t say _I will forever regret calling the Andalite a beast, now that I know what he’s done for us._

George understands.

His humour usually falls flat too.)

“Okay,” Wilbur says, laughing high-pitched and fake. “Okay. Uh. Mr. Beast, yes, good name. What the _fuck._ ”

The Andalite explains, and he tells them his real name. George knows they all forget it within the hour - it’s long and complex and not made for human tongue. He never stops feeling guilty about it anyway, not even when they meet Karl the not-Andalite who tells them his name, who makes sure they remember it.

He tells them about a Visser - the third, one of many - coming to Earth, a _Yeerk_ who wants to take over. He tells them this is a war, and Earth is the new front. He shows them the blue box, tells them about how it can give anyone the ability to morph. He tells them everything and nothing, gives them what looks like another universe tucked behind smoke and mirrors. 

They hide. The Visser comes. The Andalite dies. George cradles Dream with one arm and the blue box with the other and doesn’t close his eyes.

When it feels like hours have passed, they all get up, unwind from around each other, relearn what it is to be separate people and not one entity bound together by fear and desperation. They walk home, slow.

George morphs an osprey for the first time the next day.

-

Their first mission is a disaster.

<It’s okay,> George says after the fact, perched on Dream’s Juliet’s balcony. He shares the space with nothing but a succulent in a small blue pot, stubbornly growing. He tilts his head, sharp, the way birds do. Dream is sitting on the bed, head in his hands, and he refuses to look up. <Really, it’s fine. I mean, of all morphs to be stuck in, this one’s really cool at the very least.>

“But you _shouldn’t_ have been,” Dream mutters into his palms.

George stretches his wings, the closest he can get to a shrug. <Call the school,> he says, instead of trying to comfort someone who doesn’t want to be comforted. Dream’s not made for that kind of love. <Tell them I went back to England. Call my family and tell them I decided to stay for the rest of high school. No one will question it.>

Dream snorts, and flips onto his back to stare at the ceiling. “That’s really sad, you know?”

<It is what it is,> George says, and he stretches his wings and tilts his head and does his best to recreate the human expression of not mourning things that aren’t meant to be mourned with his limited bird movement. <I know that better than anyone.>

“I guess you do,” Dream says.

-

On their fourth or so mission, Dream and Wilbur lead Niki and Sapnap beneath the waves, and George perches anxiously on a palm tree and preens his feathers for lack of better things to do. They emerge after three long hours - and George can’t say he didn’t get nervous around the 1:58:00 mark, or that he wasn’t nervous all the way up until Dream had fully demorphed - with Karl the not-Andalite in tow.

<My name’s Karil-Estrin-Jecolb,> he says in unbothered thought-speak, and George has to squint at the mass of writhing colors he can’t quite see to identify what is possibly three eyes and a swirl that might be a mouth. _George_ has to squint.

There’s a moment of silence, and then Sapnap says, “We just call him Karl.”

<...okay,> George says. <Nice to meet you, Karl.>

<Nice to meet you too, Gogy the _nothlit_ ,> Karl says cheerfully, and then the colors twist and poke at each of George’s human friends and Karl does this thing he calls a _Frolis_ maneuver and becomes a weird amalgamation of them that is somewhat unsettling to look at. It’s - Dream’s hair, in Sapnap’s colors, cropped onto a weird blend of Niki and Wilbur’s faces. Not to mention the Everything Else about him.

Karl grimaces. “Humans are weird,” he says decisively, T-posing and looking at his arms like they hold very bad secrets to the universe. Then he brightens again. “But it’s been awhile! So thank you for having me.”

<You’re welcome,> George says when no one else responds, and snickers to himself at the way Dream’s face is contorting. <What’s a _nothlit?_ >

“You’re a _nothlit,_ ” Karl says mildly, and it almost sounds like an insult if it weren’t for the fact that he is apparently trying to figure out expressions at the moment and is smiling wide and bright. “Trapped in morph. Mmm. _Nothlit._ ”

<Thanks,> George says. Karl nods cheerfully, and begins marching in a completely random direction.

Birds cannot facepalm. George may be just the bird to invent it.

-

They part ways at the same place they’ve always parted ways - by the bakery Niki works at. Niki heads in, pulls an apron out of her bag and swings it over her head. The rest of them watch her through the window for a moment, at the way the other girl in the shop laughs and launches herself into Niki’s arms.

<Stop lingering,> George says after a moment, perched on the streetlamp above them. A little harsh. He can never find it in himself to be soft here. <It’s suspicious.>

Wilbur huffs out a breath of either laughter or disdain, shakes his head, and gives George a mock salute before turning around the corner. Sapnap glances up, then at Karl, and says, a little flushed, “Uh - Karl, I’ll take you to my house. We live right next to this massive park, you can demorph there and I doubt anyone will find you.”

“Okay,” Karl says - he smiles bright, and takes Sapnap’s hand loosely. Dream and Sapnap share an amused glance watching him struggle to interlace their fingers, before Sapnap gently does it for him and pulls him away.

Dream stands where he is for a moment. He doesn’t look up; it’s an expectation at this point, rather than something that needs to be asked. He glances at his watch, then into the bakery, then begins strolling back the way they had come.

George follows. It’s what he does.

<Walk faster,> he grumbles, and takes a sweet delight in the way Dream ducks his head and snickers. <I can only fly so slow.>

Dream doesn’t respond in words, but George can read his reaction in the way he tilts his head, shrugs, and grins with wild abandon. Of course, George is faster than him. Of course. 

George settles onto another streetlamp and fluffs his feathers, opting to let Dream get somewhat ahead of him before continuing on. <There’s a bike half a block in front of you,> he comments nonchalantly. <Dare you to steal it.>

Dream flips him off.

George projects his laughter into thought-speak and takes off from the lamp, circling a few times as he climbs in altitude before soaring in Dream’s direction, to follow him home.

-

George ends up spending a lot of time with Karl, if only for the fact that neither of them have anywhere else they could stay for long without it getting suspicious. They stay at the edge of the Everglades, always sticking close to Sapnap’s home. Karl spends his days walking - well, swirling, or moving, given his complete and utter lack of legs - along the swamplands, terrorizing the rodents and sparrows.

George mostly perches on a log or a rock or a tree and listens to him talk about anything and everything. They get to the subject of _nothlits,_ inevitably. But Karl seems to be the first person who isn’t uncomfortably aware of the way George is trapped, so he doesn’t bother trying to get away from it the way he would with Dream or Sapnap or Niki’s stifling kindness.

“You,” Karl says dramatically, pointing while sprawled on the grass, mouth contorting around the word, “are a _nothlit._ That’s interesting. Why are you a _nothlit?_ ”

<I can’t count,> George deadpans. <One hundred and twenty minutes were over with before I knew it.>

Karl’s face is always very funny when it makes expressions, because George is pretty sure ‘expressions’ aren’t a thing he needs to make in his natural form. His frown is overexaggerated, and then underexaggerated, and then he settles into a face of somewhat disdained neutrality. “Oh.”

Then, “Would you like not to be?”

Then, like he hadn’t just dropped a bomb on George’s entire perspective of morphing and life, he adds, “One hundred and twenty minutes? Is that - that’s how long the morphing limit is? How long is a minute? It’s - you split by seconds, right? Onetwothreefour -”

<You’re going way too fast,> George says absentmindedly, instinctively. <Can we go back to that other thing?>

“Right!” Karl says, eyes bright, and he sits up straight, claps his hands together. “The other thing. I thought - I mean, it’d probably be helpful to have _six_ morph capable warriors, right? I can do a thing for you. A favor, if you will. Just the once! Everyone deserves a second chance.”

<Yeah, sure,> George snaps, and it comes out far harsher than he meant it to. Regular people get second chances all the time - not boys who turn into birds, birds who might’ve once been boys. 

He isn’t regular. He isn’t average.

<I don’t get second chances,> he adds, patient, like talking to a child. <None of us do. This is war, don’t you know?>

“I deal entirely in second chances, George,” Karl says. “I can spare a few for other kids who are growing up too fast.”

There’s something painfully honest and wistful in Karl’s fake human expression. George considers, for a moment, turning and flying away - not for the first time, he reflects on how easy it’d be to disappear. Turn away from more-than-friends and aliens who promise you the world returned.

But Karl is staring at him with wide, open eyes, and he’s peeling his clasped hands apart to hold them out for George to land on, and despite the fact that he may or may not be several millenia old, it’s hard to believe Karl has a single malicious bone in his body.

It’ll take an awkward flap or two. Just one or two awkward flaps between George and getting his shitty semblance of a life back.

His wings move the air; his talons clasp on the hand.

-

Karl is a cloud again, a swarm, a hazy mist of a million colors George can’t see and probably a million others regular people can’t see either. The air contorts and twists - the osprey brain is terrified, feathers fluffing instinctively and wings beating frantically. 

George is in _awe._

If he could assign music to this moment, it’d be a bright symphony, flutes taking over for this part of the score. 

<You’re colorful,> he says dumbly, for lack of something else to say. Karl laughs, or gives the impression of a laugh, a vague rumbling pressure. It’s on all sides, encompassing. 

<I’m bad at reigning myself in,> Karl corrects, modest, and the colors flicker and sharpen into an overly familiar nighttime landscape. 

The wonder stops. The score stops, the laugh track dies out and its members shuffle awkwardly away. 

They’re in a room, standing in front of a bed. The walls of the room are blue. The sheets are grey, striped white. A little like George’s wings now, if he thinks about it. It lacks the iconic dusty brown, but - 

The lines of an arm that used to be his make right angles with the white of the sheets, with the whites of his open eyes. George remembers this night, painfully clear. He knows because the shattered remains of his favorite mug is still sitting on desk, from when he’d accidentally broken it an hour and a half earlier.

It was a gift from Dream. He knocked it on to the ground in a moment of exhausted clumsiness, and he remembers this night as being painful and tragic and filled with a million little apologies he wanted to give, to the mug he broke, to the families he broke.

Now, he’s a bird of prey, and he perches on a floating cloud of colored mist, and wishes he could apologize for what he is about to turn this boy’s life into.

<Go on,> Karl says, still cheerful if somewhat muted. <I can’t turn back the clock completely, but you can - you can reacquire him. And you’ll be able to morph again. This’ll be your base form of course, but. You’ll be able to morph again.>

_You’ll be able to morph again._

<But I’ll still be a bird,> George says, dumbly, and the dawning pain of realization is almost enough to make him angry. Almost, not enough. The anger does rise, but it’s not at Karl like he wished.

 _Stupid._ So fucking stupid for thinking he could have some semblance of a normal life again. _You are not normal. When are you going to fucking learn?_

The George in the bed in front of him is only a few months younger than he is now, but the way he trembles and the way his breaths catch is so alien to him. Ospreys don’t have that. They don’t shake and they don’t breathe, not like that.

George thinks of the animals in their acquiring trances, thinks of the way they always still and soften, eyes going all gentle around the edges.

He can morph again.

He can morph _himself_ again.

More importantly, he can give this old version of himself a few moments of peace, and tranquility.

George takes it. 

-

Morphing is easier than George expected. It must help that the body is one he’s known most of his life, too long limbs and disproportionate features. He perches on a log next to the river - one Karl had sat on and decided would be safe enough to hold his human weight - and focuses on the DNA he lost, the DNA he regained.

It’s his beak that goes first, followed by his feathers alternately sinking below his skin and withdrawing like cat’s claws. His limbs - arms and legs, shriveled versions of them - unfurl from the spots his wings melted into his side and fill. 

He sits by the river. It was not a pretty process, but he’s here now, and he stares at his reflection in the water like it’s something new.

<Congrats!> Karl says eagerly, and a color that might be green pushes into the edge of George’s vision. <You’re human. For one hundred and twenty minutes, at least.>

<Thanks,> George responds, instinctively in thought-speak. He frowns and opens his mouth, pulls a weird face to try and stretch the muscles. He clears his throat, tries again. “Thanks.”

“Huh,” he says, and marvels at the way he feels it in his throat. “I’m human.”

Lies still taste like lies, no matter what mouth they’re coming from.

There’s no wings to spread, no feathers to fluff. There is no joy, no disappointment. Just George, staring at his reflection, Karl beside him. George the boy, the bird, the human, the osprey. He folds his knees up and tilts his head. “Here I am,” he says, soft.

<Here you are,> Karl says, uncharacteristically solemn, and it feels like it’s the universe saying it. 

-

It’s past midnight by the time George arrives at Dream’s house, but he’s awake like George knew he would be. In bed, staring at his phone, blankets tossed half onto the ground. George lands gently on the now-succulent-less balcony and flutters his wings, shifts his weight from talon to talon.

<Hi,> he murmurs as much as you _can_ murmur in thought-speak, and tilts his head when Dream rolls over to look. <You look tired.>

Dream shrugs a shoulder and sits up, runs a hand through his hair. George can almost hear him say _don’t worry, Georgie, I’m perfectly okay_ \- but it looks like Dream doesn’t have the energy to lie, tonight. George straightens himself out and fluffs his feathers up, preparing himself to just say the words before he chickens - or ospreys, and he laughs internally at the dumb joke - out.

<Meet me outside?> he asks, still soft. Dream gestures towards the abandoned hoodie on the ground, and George turns his head sharply to indicate a nod and takes off.

It takes Dream a few minutes, which is all the time George needs.

Dream is yawning and rubbing his eyes when he steps out, when he turns to close the door behind him. George hadn’t meant for the reveal to be this dramatic, but fate would have it so, he supposes. 

Dream turns. “Hi,” George says, and he sits cross-legged on the grass with his arms spread and does his best to remember how to smile.

Any hint of exhaustion disappears from Dream’s face and he’s in front of George in an instant, eyes wide and lips parted. “You -” he breathes, and drops to his knees. He puts a hand on George’s face and tracks the movement like it’ll disappear beneath his fingers if he looks away. 

“Before you get too excited,” George says quickly, because Dream has to know, he can’t be letting him put too much hope in this stupid little thing, “This is - it’s a morph. I have two hours.”

_We have two hours._

Dream, for his part, takes hold of his expression before it crumples completely, and smiles brightly instead. “Okay,” he says. “Two hours. We can work with that.”

George wraps his own hand over Dream’s lightly, curls his fingers and holds it close to his cheek. _God,_ if he didn’t used to hate being touched, but being a bird apparently does things to you, and now it feels like the sweetest kind of drug.

 _Touch starvation,_ he thinks wildly, and doesn’t bother thinking more.

Dream settles fully onto the grass and moves his hand, tugging George’s down with it. He holds his hand in both his own and stares at it like he can’t believe it, then back up at George like he can’t believe that. “You’re here,” he says, dumbstruck.

“Very observant,” George says, and the laugh that bubbles out at Dream’s indignant noise is almost natural.

“Shut up,” Dream says, fondly. His eyes crinkle when he laughs - it’s not like George hadn’t noticed, given how good osprey eyes are compared to human ones, but it feels so much more intimate now. The blush that rises to his cheeks must be obvious, but Dream, kindly, doesn’t say anything. “You know what I mean. How?”

“Uh,” George says. “Karl. He’s - a time traveller, apparently. He travels through time. Probably some other things too. We really - Dream, we really don’t know _anything_ about him.”

Something in Dream’s face shutters, and he purses his lips a little. “I see,” he says, in his leader-voice. Ready to take charge and solve problems, save the world with whatever it takes. Then it softens again. “Let’s not talk about that kind of stuff right now. Let’s just - talk.”

“Talk,” George echoes, because that is one of many things he has never been good at. For Dream, though - he’ll try. “Okay. Let’s talk.”

Dream’s smile is bright and wide. He lets go of George’s hand only to hold his arms out and says, simply, “Can I give you a hug?”

George huffs a laugh and crawls across the very little space between them to collapse into Dream’s lap. It’s nice. It’s - more than nice really. _Something something touch starvation,_ he thinks again, but it’s too nice to worry about the long-term consequences of not having it, so he burrows closer to Dream and smiles when he hears his heartbeat.

Dream’s arms close. His chest vibrates when he speaks.

Two hours fly by. George flies away.

He’s back again the next night on his unsteady human legs, looking for the crinkle with his terrible human eyes. Being human is, arguably, much worse and more inconvenient than being an osprey. Taxes, for one. Clothing. Bad eyesight and bad balance and an altogether unnecessarily painful skeletal system. 

For Dream, though - for Dream, George wants to be human.

The war is not over; far from it. It has things to take from them yet. But it’s midnight and George is human, and Dream is human, and they’re in the garden together. The war can wait and let them appreciate the flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! please subscribe to the series if you're interested in seeing where this goes :) while comments and kudos are much appreciated, i can't promise a response :( i've been struggling w responding to comments lately, but i promise i do read all of them, and i love and appreciate all of you so much <3
> 
> (hope u liked the mr beast joke i think i'm really funny)


End file.
